Clarify

A high level of clarity about what your team stands for, what their goals and roles are is necessary for you to consistently work towards achieving them. A lack of clarity, on the other hand, leads to confusion, stress, and frustration. There are two common patterns that typically emerge when teams lack clarity of purpose.

The first is the pattern of playing politics. This is when the team is extremely focused on getting into the manager’s good graces. However, without clarity of purpose, the team members will not be able to identify what exactly they need to do to achieve the desired results. Instead, they will likely end up putting all their effort into making themselves look better than their peers, demonstrate their self-importance, etc, while not actually getting the essential job done!

The second pattern shows how teams without clarity of purpose become leaderless. Without a clear direction to proceed toward, the team members will begin to work on tasks that advance their own short-term interests without considering the big picture, ie. the overall results the team needs to achieve.

The best way to achieve clarity of purpose is to define your team’s essential intent. This essential intent will provide the foundation and structure your team will work with to ensure they stay on-track.